image‘If she can’t see it, she can’t be it’; why a range of female role models for young people in our popular media matters.

By Rebecca Brand.

I was so pleased when I heard about the launch of Rewind&Reframe. Finally a campaign to unite the myriad voices that have spoken out – sporadically but in ever-increasing numbers – about the hyper-sexualisation of pop music and the impact this might be having on younger audiences. What I particularly like about the campaign is its clear message of empowerment. Rather than merely identifying a problem and complaining about it, Rewind&Reframe aims to help facilitate individuals to take positive action, to have a voice and use it.

For the past 6 months, I myself have been part of a project with the same ethos. In an audacious and provocative protest against the world’s flagrant attempts to sexualise and commodify childhood, the award-winning performance artist Bryony Kimmings and her 9-year-old niece Taylor decided to take on the global tween machine at its own game. They invented Catherine Bennett (or ‘CB’ to her fans)  – a dinosaur-loving, bike-riding, tuna-pasta-eating pop star – and vowed to make her world famous to prove that an alternative was possible. CB is played by Bryony, like a character, and is managed by Taylor (that’s right, the 9 year-old is in charge!). You can meet CB and hear her music here.

I loved Bryony and Taylor’s project so much that I decided to make a documentary about it, to capture their story and contextualise the cultural environment in which it is unfolding. Since we started, we’ve witnessed the Blurred Lines furore, Miley’s twerking (and the various celebrity responses to it), Charlotte Church’s John Peel lecture, Lily’s controversial come-back, and now Rewind&Reframe. The debate is happening, and all of these things -whether you see them as positives or negatives - are feeding into it, which can only be a good thing. All the while CB has been racking up hits on Youtube, going into schools to talk directly to tweens about the media they see, interviewed on BBC and Sky News, featured in the Guardian and The Independent, and had one of her songs played on Radio 1 by the awesome Gemma Cairney.

The most striking thing I think I’ve realised since starting my own journey with this project is that there really isn’t anyone like CB out there right now. She is a true alternative; a quirky, fun, popstar for tweens who sings about animals, friendship, and the future whilst wearing funky bright clothes and shoes which are practical rather than prohibitive. And, you know what, tweens love her! One girl we spoke to at a CB gig said to us “I think (it’s) the type of music that I’d listen to because it’s quite upbeat and about subjects that I like.”

I’m a big believer in the phrase ‘if she can’t see it, she can’t be it’, and that’s why a range of female role models for young people in our popular media matters (If you’re interested in reading more on this see my blog for the Guardian Women in Leadership here ). But let’s be realistic, the music business won’t change for the good of humanity (the clue is in the ‘business’ bit). So it’s up to us, the audience, to use our collective power to show them that it’s in their interests to start offering something different. To start being a bit more creative and to realise that there’s a huge, untapped audience of young people who would love more music about the things that they’re interested in and for it not to be sung to them by someone who is semi-naked and gyrating against a pole/bottle of vodka/crotch/all of the aforementioned. It’s not about censorship, it’s about choice. And right now, we’re not delivering choice for younger audiences.

We really hope that the CB experiment might lead to some real change, by proving that a genuine alternative can be successful and that there is a desire amongst the audience for it. And I think that’s also what Rewind&Reframe has the power to do, through the voices it will help to facilitate. It’s time for the music industry to start listening, for the penny to drop. Because that penny could just turn into a pound or two for them.

Rebecca Brand is a filmmaker and creative communications professional. She’s made short documentary films and is currently running a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise £10,000 towards her documentary. Find out more about the documentary and watch clips here.

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